Counter-Strike has been one of the most popular Half-Life multiplayer mods throughout the past couple of years. Therefore, making it into a single-player game may seem like a good idea for those who just aren't into multiplayer gaming. However, being first announced three years ago, Condition Zero has gone through a very bumpy development cycle. Initially starting development at Valve Software, Condition Zero quickly found itself being passed around to at least three other development companies before finally settling down at Turtle Rock Studios. After being pushed from pillar to post for so long, it may be the many delays that kill Condition Zero in the end. It is essentially a game that should have been released years ago. Indeed, when compared with newer first person shooter, Condition Zero may seem a little ancient. In other words, this update to a great multiplayer mod may have been more warmly welcomed had it been released years ago.
The single-player portion of the game is exactly the same as the multiplayer, except for the fact that you're playing against bots. You always play as the commander of a counter-terrorist force, and you can choose your teammates, who have various skills and preferences. When you advance through the game's campaign you earn points that you can later use to hire more team members who possess better skills. Depending on your performance within a map, you will also earn money that you can use to purchase new weapons and ammo. You can choose from a great deal of deadly weapons that get the job done. The weapons consist of handguns, shotguns, assault rifles and even tactical shields.
There are 18 maps in total, most of which can be recognized from the original Counter-Strike. However, some of the maps have been greatly tweaked by changing some of the terrain around. There are also a few new levels which have been taken from the Xbox version of the game. In order to beat each map you must win 3 times against the terrorists as well as completing some special objectives. These special objectives can consist of getting a certain number of kills, completing a round within a certain amount of time, getting kills with a specific weapon, or rescuing hostages. Your objectives are different depending on what difficulty level you chose. Obviously the harder the difficulty level is, the harder your objectives will be. Even Counter-Strike veterans will probably be challenged by the two higher difficulty levels. Gameplay consists mainly of the classic bombing and hostage modes. In bombing maps the terrorists have to plant and detonate a bomb in one of two areas whilst the counter-terrorists protect these areas. The hostage-rescue maps have the terrorists defending a small group of computer-controlled civilians and the counter-terrorists have to rescue them. Normally this turns into a big firefight and one side usually ends up eliminating the other side before any terrorists can even be rescued. So most of the time you can easily win by just killing off the terrorists instead of worrying about your main objectives.
Surprisingly, for a game that feels quite old, it really does have some good AI. Compared to other multiplayer-based games such as the Battlefield series, Condition Zero has some pretty advanced AI. The AI is smart and uses advanced tactics to make winning that much harder for you. They take effective cover when being fired upon and will retreat when they know that they are outnumbered. They also effectively guard their objectives, whether it be a certain area or hostages. They also won't plant the bomb in the same place every round on the bombing gameplay mode. The strategic tactics that they use make the gameplay experience different every time.
You would think that given a number of years to develop this game and a number of annoying delays they would have opted to use a much more advanced graphics engine. But sadly the graphics tend to resemble a clone of Half-Life. Sure there is nothing wrong with Half-Life's graphics: 6 years ago! Of course people are still playing Half-Life and it's practically the largest multiplayer game in the world with more than 75,000 people playing online every second of every day. Even massive multiplayer games such as the Battlefield series and Americas Army: Special Forces carry on with only around 7,000 players. But the point is that even though the graphics are still tolerable and not horribly grotesque, there's no reason to make a new game using a graphics engine that's almost 6 years old. The textures are flat and plain, but the character models did get a slight upgrade in detail. Hopefully this will be the last time the original Half-Life engine is packaged in a $40 game.
A new optional section of the game has also been included. It's called "Deleted Scenes." It's basically the Counter-Strike single-player game that Ritual Entertainment was creating before development was handed over to Turtle Rock. So, they decided to keep Ritual's ideas in and make a completely different single-player game. You play through like any other first person shooter game and advance through war-torn levels with your counter-terrorist squads. Although most of the time you are not with your squad and you feel more like Rambo blowing the crap out of anything that moves. But if you need something to pass the time then the Deleted Scenes will give you a short thrill.
Conclusion
This is one game that seems like it was rushed through production, even though it took so long to develop. It mainly took so long because it was passed around from one developer to another more times than a convict in a prison cell. It all comes down to a 6-year-old mod that was given a few new maps, and a new single-player mode that plays out the same as the classic multiplayer mode. Add to that a second unpolished single-player mode that was developed by a completely different company and you get a game that seems to have been mainly put together to keep everyone occupied until Half-Life 2 is released. If Half-Life 2 had been released last September as originally planned, chances are that sales would have dropped heavily for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Condition Zero even comes with a special CD that shows off the best high-res gameplay movies for the upcoming Half-Life 2. You'll probably spend more time watching these videos than playing Condition Zero.
The single-player portion of the game is exactly the same as the multiplayer, except for the fact that you're playing against bots. You always play as the commander of a counter-terrorist force, and you can choose your teammates, who have various skills and preferences. When you advance through the game's campaign you earn points that you can later use to hire more team members who possess better skills. Depending on your performance within a map, you will also earn money that you can use to purchase new weapons and ammo. You can choose from a great deal of deadly weapons that get the job done. The weapons consist of handguns, shotguns, assault rifles and even tactical shields.
There are 18 maps in total, most of which can be recognized from the original Counter-Strike. However, some of the maps have been greatly tweaked by changing some of the terrain around. There are also a few new levels which have been taken from the Xbox version of the game. In order to beat each map you must win 3 times against the terrorists as well as completing some special objectives. These special objectives can consist of getting a certain number of kills, completing a round within a certain amount of time, getting kills with a specific weapon, or rescuing hostages. Your objectives are different depending on what difficulty level you chose. Obviously the harder the difficulty level is, the harder your objectives will be. Even Counter-Strike veterans will probably be challenged by the two higher difficulty levels. Gameplay consists mainly of the classic bombing and hostage modes. In bombing maps the terrorists have to plant and detonate a bomb in one of two areas whilst the counter-terrorists protect these areas. The hostage-rescue maps have the terrorists defending a small group of computer-controlled civilians and the counter-terrorists have to rescue them. Normally this turns into a big firefight and one side usually ends up eliminating the other side before any terrorists can even be rescued. So most of the time you can easily win by just killing off the terrorists instead of worrying about your main objectives.
Surprisingly, for a game that feels quite old, it really does have some good AI. Compared to other multiplayer-based games such as the Battlefield series, Condition Zero has some pretty advanced AI. The AI is smart and uses advanced tactics to make winning that much harder for you. They take effective cover when being fired upon and will retreat when they know that they are outnumbered. They also effectively guard their objectives, whether it be a certain area or hostages. They also won't plant the bomb in the same place every round on the bombing gameplay mode. The strategic tactics that they use make the gameplay experience different every time.
You would think that given a number of years to develop this game and a number of annoying delays they would have opted to use a much more advanced graphics engine. But sadly the graphics tend to resemble a clone of Half-Life. Sure there is nothing wrong with Half-Life's graphics: 6 years ago! Of course people are still playing Half-Life and it's practically the largest multiplayer game in the world with more than 75,000 people playing online every second of every day. Even massive multiplayer games such as the Battlefield series and Americas Army: Special Forces carry on with only around 7,000 players. But the point is that even though the graphics are still tolerable and not horribly grotesque, there's no reason to make a new game using a graphics engine that's almost 6 years old. The textures are flat and plain, but the character models did get a slight upgrade in detail. Hopefully this will be the last time the original Half-Life engine is packaged in a $40 game.
A new optional section of the game has also been included. It's called "Deleted Scenes." It's basically the Counter-Strike single-player game that Ritual Entertainment was creating before development was handed over to Turtle Rock. So, they decided to keep Ritual's ideas in and make a completely different single-player game. You play through like any other first person shooter game and advance through war-torn levels with your counter-terrorist squads. Although most of the time you are not with your squad and you feel more like Rambo blowing the crap out of anything that moves. But if you need something to pass the time then the Deleted Scenes will give you a short thrill.
Conclusion
This is one game that seems like it was rushed through production, even though it took so long to develop. It mainly took so long because it was passed around from one developer to another more times than a convict in a prison cell. It all comes down to a 6-year-old mod that was given a few new maps, and a new single-player mode that plays out the same as the classic multiplayer mode. Add to that a second unpolished single-player mode that was developed by a completely different company and you get a game that seems to have been mainly put together to keep everyone occupied until Half-Life 2 is released. If Half-Life 2 had been released last September as originally planned, chances are that sales would have dropped heavily for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Condition Zero even comes with a special CD that shows off the best high-res gameplay movies for the upcoming Half-Life 2. You'll probably spend more time watching these videos than playing Condition Zero.
